some seriulsy sick ideas...

[ghost92]

heya
I cant seem to login on the official PS site at the moment..* actually as lie there, I have never been able..) so idecied to post my suggests here. tis was from an email I got back from hayoo, the guy who runs www.planetside-idealab.com. i originally sent him a list of suggestion and he wrote back saying what was and wasnt possible etc.

Things that aren't possible currently:

Pop locks decreased - Remember each empire has a pop-lock at 166+ players for a total of 500 players in one server. Beyond this point the server starts complaining about the bandwidth load. We'd have to wait for significant strides in techology and netcode for this to happen.

Faster vehicle movement on roads - this would make sense, but requires extra coding so that the geometry where a road is on changes parameters for speed physics. Not an easy task, and not one we'll see anytime soon.

Complete day/night transitions - this has been asked for plenty times, but isn't currently possible because the bright skydome textures are too large to make two versions of every sky. Someday perhaps.

Option to skip account login, terms and condition and automatic launch game into "favorite character/server" - I doubt SOE will allow us to skip the terms and conditions part. Would be nice, but I don't think they're going to do this.

Integration for itunes or WMM - If they haven't already integrated Ventrillo or Teamspeak, they ain't gonna do this either, I'm afriad. They'd rather make their own program, like the in-game voice coms.

Suggestions already in game:

Real time incentives - Currently we get HP and XP bonuses updated every 5 min. Any quicker and you risk even wilder fluctuations in benefits during a battle.

Chat commands listed - These are list in the Help Pane in-game, and in the Manual on the official website.

Email address registration for community newsletter - This is part of the fan-club feature (which already requires your email address). You have to go to the registration and accept emails from Station or SOE, I believe. To be honest I signed up for the emails too late to recieve the newsletter, so a straight-forward email sign up would be nice.

Bigger locker space and locker access on the sancuatry - maybe we don't have bigger locker space (yet) but there are lockers in the sanctuary. In the HART building is an observation room where there is a large row of lockers. To get there, go to the second floor and look on the map for a long hallway at the end of the building leading up. Follow that to the observation deck. The other location for lockers is the nearby tower at every Villa and warpgate.

Suggestions that need more detail: (these should be explained in more detail, but not to me! I don't have time to make consecutive emails like this, I'm just pointing things out. Flesh these out and submit them to a real developer if you can)

Vanu weapons seem overpowered - that's a loaded suggestion but without any detail. Very few people will listen to this suggestion, especially if you're TR.

More CERT packages like UniMAX - I'm thinking you mean for the grunt certs?

Router invisible in AMS bubble - Just a few weeks ago I saw my empire doing this. Does it show through the bubble? It's probably a bug. I would suggest you /bug it.

Acceleration I believe seems a bit off for heavier vehicles - which heavy vehicles? All heavy vehicles? Devs would need a lot more input.

The speed module doesn't seem to work as well as it could - which part? The respawn speed, foot speed? Devs would need more input.

Improved HUD for aircraft and infantry and vehicles - What kind of improvements? more information, less information, slicker GUI? Devs would need a heck of a lot more input.

Certifications rethinked -

Possible Suggestions, but not likely changed:

Battle islands having less towers - With less bases to get vehicles from, the Devs put in more towers as a balance, forcing the dominant empire to cover more territory, while providing the enemy with reasonble spawn points.

Caves need to have better base layouts, perhaps even dramatically increase cavern size and have surface bases as well as AT bases - This suggestion is simply too big considering we don't even have higher pops in the caverns yet. Plus it would entail redoing the entire geometry and maps for the caverns.

Cave towers - we asked for something like this as Mobilization Alpha, but I believe the Devs will simply try to improve the current respawn locations. But who knows.

Less RAM dependence - Memory, as opposed to using HD space, is the perfect medium for a MMO game because of the termporary nature of the data coming in. I highly doubt we'll use less RAM in the future.

CERT timer reduced to 12 hours - The problem with reductions in timers is that they are never low enough. Reduce it to 12 and people will demand 6. Reduce to 6 and people will demand 3. Besides that, the Devs already feel 24 hours is a good balance because they are looking at the overall population in the persistant world that is Planetside. 24 hours is not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things and it's a strategic decision on the part of the player. We are encouraged to think beyond the scope of one play session. Only if you look at it from the single player's perspective of available time during a single session does 12 hours look good.

Empire character switch reduced to 4 hours - Dual-empires this is a result of combining the servers to get the multiple fights we have today. To combat the inherent issues with having 2 "loyalties" we are lucky to get 6. I personally would like the dual empire thing done away with entirely, but since that's not possible, I wouldn't go for less time.

More XP for infantry one on one kills - I'd rather have more XP for a squad kill. Solo play is already favored over squading in many situations.

More fan input - It's hard to see us getting more input than we do now. I'm surprised we get this much involvement with development. More information would be nice, but most fan input is so one-dimensional and biased toward their own gameplay, I think we might have reached the best reach of our involvement.

The caves need to be generated at the most populated continents, maybe even after a certain number of people are on each content the caves open up? - Hmm. Interesting idea. Possible, but with the new geowarps now accessable without needing a link, and also becoming broadcast warpgates, this change may no longer be necessary.

2 active geowarps per cont so then the fight goes underneath as well but have access to same cavern - see above for why this might not be necessary anymore.

Reaver missile more splash - You do realize if they did this, even more people than normal would be in a reaver. I doubt they'd do this unless they decreased the damage at the same time.

Reaver missile more damage to aircraft - see above

Suggestions that would make play "easier":

When flail deployed the turrent faces forward (perhaps as an option) - Fisa, the concept artist, said originally the Flail drove and deployed facing the other way but it was rotated for a more alien feel.

Suggestions that make me suspect they're from the TR perspective:

NC jackhammer 2nd fire mode range should be decreased

When driving prowler, permanent indication of straight ahead (headlights aren't always on)

Vanu weapons seem overpowered - massive giveaway You need to give Devs more details on exactly what needs to be changed or nerfed, what situations you decided the nerfing was needed. This suggestion or statement is entirely too vague and suspicious.
The TR chaingun needs to do more damage from further away

Suggestions I agree on:

Grenade holster

Empire specific sancs and bases

Targets in the vehicle range

Tanks in the shooting range

Bigger scorch marks, debris - Unfortuantely this eats up RAM and causes more lag for everyone.

Message received sound for CR5 global and cont chat - I assume you mean a chime or something when the player recieves the message. So long as it's a toggle. Personally I'd rather have a sound occur when I'm made squad leader.

When aircraft are being created in a capitol when the force dome is up, the aircraft go above the force dome in autopilot, making them easy targets for concentrated fire. - Might not be possible because all vehicle pads share the same code, apparently. To change one, you'd have to change them all.

Walls bridges etc can be destroyed after enormous damage but can be repaired by engineers - Would be fun, so long as it doesn't eat up my memory or cause more lag.

Flail better targeting with the way points right now it seems way off - We probably need that secondary fire mode that launches a guidance camera.

Have some bases inside urban complexes with capturable buildings maybe 1 or 2 per cont? - The new bases in development will be made up of at least 5 buildings (plus a few other buildings) that must be captured to control the facility.

With the new base layouts have 1\2 the old style and 1\2 the new style for varied gameplay - They just might do this, as old players (such as myself) would miss the nostalgia of the old bases.

Suggestions that seem to contradict each other:

Faster loading times but more content - Choose one. Seriously though, there are a lot of factors to this: size of content to download, updates to download, speed of connection, memory size, etc. etc.

I believe that people would be happy to pay more for more content quicker - I doubt this, considering that most players assume they're paying for the best possible service already. If you increase performance, there's no way players will justify paying more for that. It's kind of a catch-22 for the developers.

[ghost92]

Since then I have thought up an entirly new idea..WORLD SERVER..Thats right. basically ( I actually have no real exp with writing comp. code and that stuff but...) you connect through your normal servers but everyone plays at the same world, conts etc? so you connect differenlty to reduce the otherwise enormous lag but have the servers linked somehow....

Anyways is any you guys can tell me if these are possible or whatever..
o and yeah how do u guys get your stats to post in the forums??

ghost92 Markov THE DARK SIDE ranked 10th with the least no. of players yeah thats right...

[Lartnev]

I'm guessing Hayoo's already gone through the ideas judging by the -s listed throughout so unless there are some highlights that you want discussing I'll just agree with what he says (and I agree with him on the points I read)

As for the last idea, I don't think it's possible. There are 3 servers so that you can choose the server closest to you to get the best connection. Hooking them all together just wouldn't work (At least, I don't see how it could).

[Thunder_Hawk]

a world server would mean the end of PS. for starters, the lag between people on Markov and Werner would be a problem. this would extend primetime, but durring that when all 3 servers would have primetime, few people could accually fight. not all the planets have fighting on them so people would be stuck in sanc, the sanc gets poplocked, then what happenes to the people logging on?

[ghost92]

I thought about the pop locks on sanc to.. whencombining the servers increase continent size...the sanc need a revamp anyway...as the world erver i dont think would be any lag as werner would still be connecting to werner and markov to markov and so on the only differnece would be the playing are and people etc would be sharing that sam space, connecting the servers.

Also i players should be able to quit and then when logining back in later be automaticaally retuened to the sanc everytime instead of returning to a probaly dead cont.

[Lartnev]

So.. you connect to Werner.... and then somehow the people playing on Markov would be involved with the people on Werner? I think that defies the whole point.